1929 – The Wall  Street Crash  Hits the Kinta Valley

In 1929, the American stock market crashed and sent the USA into a disastrous economic depression.In a very short time, countries around the world began to feel the effects of this depression. Ipoh and the Kinta Valley  suffered the effects of the Great Depression. The tin price fell sharply from  £222 per ton in January 1929 to  £105 in December 1930.There was mass unemployment among tin mine workers and much social misery. The Chinese New Year of 1931 was extraordinarily quiet in Ipoh, as everybody was strapped for cash.

   

“When was the last time that the Chinese New Year holiday was ushered in with  cracker firing and the beating of cymbals and drums and a huge procession?”  -Ho Tak Ming “Ipoh When Tin Was King” .

REPATRIATION

"More than 20,000 Chinese mine workers were repatriated  to China by the colonial authorities. It was sad to see them lining up forlornly in the railway station  to leave a country they had come to not too long ago with so much hope."

·       - Source :Ho Tak Ming “Ipoh When Tin Was King”